Stigma of Joblessness

There is a chart from a Pew Survey that asked the question, “is today a good day?”. Richer countries scored lower than poorer ones, by large margins. A lot of countries that scored high had very high unemployment. I think people might be happiest where they don’t have job stress and they have less stress of joblessness. In rich countries you choose between the two. Even if your physical needs are met, being jobless makes you an object of scorn. In poorer countries employment is so low that there is a critical mass of people not working which makes for much less stigma.